Marina Manoukian

places II

places are inconsequential. they merely foster false notions of to belong. sometimes it’s all the same materials put together in different ways. sometimes it’s different materials put together in different ways. but places are created by the long and short strides taken down alleyways late at night. snapshots of exhilaration and doubt mist together to fuel your perception of the surroundings but you carry the fog with you. describe memories to yourself as though they actually happened because you’re sure they did they must have. but the place you’re describing never existed. it’s here now in your thoughts but that place isn’t a place to go to or come back from. that doesn’t make it wrong but eventually its usefulness runs its course. leave the notion of place as place. place is merely a placeholder for what happens when all surrounding and done is evaluated as a whole.

what’s so special about seeing many different places? what’s so special about staying in one place forever watching details erode like the slowest stars in the sky.

but then how do you let go of a place when everything that happened happened there. when they could’ve happened somewhere else exactly the same or entirely different. when that place is the only remaining evidence of what happened in an instant. lost amongst absent fingertips and trips to the bathroom.

letting go of a place is in a sense impossible because one always has to be in a place. you’re thrust into it. it surrounds you. one way to avoid exposure is to be in a place within a place but that only helps so much.

but it’s just a place. there are other places to go. there are other places to make it into.

turn rose colored glasses into bifocals

turn every corner until being lost becomes an absurdity. then try your hardest to lose yourself again.

turn the page on the chapter on periodization and begin folding.

turn over new leaves at old graves

turn until you’re dizzy. then go the other way.

marina manoukian is a reader and writer in her twenties. currently based in berlin, she is working towards a masters in english philology. her work has been previously published with cultura colectiva +, empty mirror press, and others. find more of her words and images at marinamanoukian.com